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Posted January 29, 2018

The JRPG Days are not over yet! You've been playing Zwei: The Arges Adventure and Legrand Legacy: Tale of the Fatebounds while snagging genre classics on the cheap from our jRPG Days sale. Now it's time to take a look behind the scenes: team leader Ken Berry and localization producer Thomas Lipschultz have taken some time to chat with us about how XSEED handles the release and localization of their beloved JRPG series. The interview is broken down into two parts, for convenience. Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow, January 30.

So, let's start with a quick year in review – from your professional point of view, has 2017 been good to Japanese games in the West?

Ken: Yes, I would say that 2017 has been a very good year for Japanese games in the West. The obvious big winner is Nintendo with their extremely successful launch of the Switch, as I remember some Japanese executives being concerned whether the idea of one machine being both a home console and a portable machine could succeed in North America where public transportation is not nearly as prevalent as Japan. The PC platform also continues to get more support from the Japanese gaming industry. Not only are you seeing more instances of simultaneous PC launches with the console release, but they seem to be gradually accepting the idea of DRM-free on PC as well, which had always been a huge challenge in the past because they would often mistakenly equate “DRM-free” to “free.”

A lot can be said about different sensibilities in Japan vs. the West. In the past year, maybe more than ever, sexuality, sexualization, and consent, are talked about in mainstream Western culture – taboos are being broken and lines being drawn. Has this had an impact on your approach and your work?

Tom: As a company, I think it’s definitely made us stop and take stock of a game’s content a lot earlier in the process than ever before, so we know well in advance whether there will be any potentially problematic content, and can prepare ourselves to deal with that content as production ramps up. For me specifically, it’s been kind of an inner struggle, as I think a lot of people are aware that I have a personal zero-tolerance policy for censorship in video games, along with a fairly broad definition of what constitutes censorship (for me, it consists of any content changes made not out of legal or contractual necessity, but solely in an attempt to avoid offending or upsetting members of the target audience). Despite this, I do fully understand that from a business standpoint – and even from a moral standpoint – it’s always best to avoid upsetting your fans, because obviously, an upset fan is not going to remain a fan for very long, and signing off on upsetting or troublesome language or imagery is never something anyone wants to do! The problem I have, though, is that I truly do consider video games – ALL video games – to be art, and just as it wouldn’t feel right to me if someone painted over offensive material in a painting, edited out offensive material in a book, or cut offensive material from a film, I don’t want to see anyone (least of all us) editing out offensive material in games. My thought is, if it’s that offensive, then we probably shouldn’t be releasing the game at all – though that’s obviously not always a realistic option. Recently, however, with all the news that’s come out about systemic sexual harassment and abuse in Hollywood and elsewhere, as well as the issues being faced by the LGBTQ community in this modern political climate, it’s become much harder to justify maintaining a zero-tolerance approach – and with a lot of Japanese games starting to really push the boundaries of “good taste” more and more, the looming threat of censorship has become much larger and more imposing than ever, and certainly more of a beast to fight on multiple levels. And it’s really not a battle I WANT to fight – I’d rather just localize games that everybody can enjoy! I still hold firm in my belief, however, that if we want video games to be classified as an art form on par with books, films, and paintings, we need to maintain zero tolerance for censorship in localization, no matter how offensive the content we’re localizing may be. And if there’s any positive to be gained by doing so, it’s that the presence of offensive content in localized titles will spark much-needed discussion about those topics, and hopefully lead to a dialogue on the state of the industry in Japan, possibly even resulting in creators being a little more cognizant of people outside their tight-knit circle of acquaintances when designing new titles from here on out. But for the immediate future, I believe content alteration will occur a little more often in the West than it has before (hopefully not by us, but regrettably, that isn’t outside the realm of possibility!), while little else will change for the industry overseas. My solace lies in the thought that we’ll just keep getting more games like the Zwei titles to work on: superb examples of classic action JRPG design with content that’s often snarky and a little mischievous, but never crosses the line into offensive territory, and thus isn’t at any risk of being toned down in localization. Those remain a joy to work on, and the more games of that sort I’m given, the less worried I’ll be about censorship moving forward.

The titles. We need to talk about the game titles... What is it that makes Japanese naming conventions so different? How do you approach localizing a game's title, and what does it take to make it work in the West?

Tom: I don’t think most Japanese naming conventions are all that different, honestly, save for the fact that they’re usually much longer than the names we tend to see here (with subtitles on top of subtitles, e.g. “Corpse Party: BloodCovered: …Repeated Fear”). Which, I believe, is mostly attributable to some general differences in the way games are advertised in Japan, with more text meaning a bigger poster on the wall and more space allotted to discuss the game in print… not to mention the ability to strike a pose and rattle off a long name, looking and sounding kind of dorkily awesome in the process! In the Western world, though, we’re definitely all about succinct naming: something short and to the point, that rolls off the tongue, with one or two words being the ideal. Especially if it’s unique enough to be Googlable! We want the name to be easy to remember so that prospective fans can always find information on it at a moment’s notice, even if they haven’t heard anyone talking about the game for quite some time. I assume you’re speaking more in terms of translations, though (“Sen no Kiseki” → “Trails of Cold Steel”), as well as the rare addition of subtitles (“Zwei!!” → “Zwei: The Arges Adventure”). In the former case, the goal is to come up with something that remains relatively true to the original Japanese but still sounds snappy and natural in English, with bonus points for picking a name that perfectly fits the tone and content of the game (as “Trails of Cold Steel” most definitely does). And in the latter case, we were really just trying to avoid drawing attention to the fact that we were releasing “Zwei II” before “Zwei” – a luxury afforded us by the fact that the two games tell standalone stories, and necessitated by the fact that Zwei II was finished and ready for release quite a bit sooner. We considered numerous possible subtitles for both games, but ultimately chose “The Ilvard Insurrection” for Zwei II because… well, it preserved the acronym, “Zwei:II”! We attempted something similar with the first game, but despite our best attempts, we couldn’t come up with any viable names that would form the acronyms ONE, EINS, or even WAN, nor any single-word subtitles beginning with the letter I. We settled on AA to preserve the double lettering of Ilvard Insurrection, and because A is the first letter of the alphabet… and also because the first Zwei is a pretty tough game, so we anticipated a lot of people would be saying “AAAAAA” when playing it!

Post edited January 29, 2018 by maladr0Id

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wyrdwad: Er, what if "being gay" is what the creator wanted from that character? In that case, forcing the creator NOT to make them "VERY GAY" would be censorship. I can definitely think of games where the character being "very gay," as you put it, is pretty central to who they are, even if it's not relevant to the story (Knytt Underground springs to mind immediately, and is also a great title to rally behind for the pro-censorship crowd, since it's the only game I know of to receive an M rating from the ESRB *solely* for foul language and discussion of sexuality; I think most developers would've chosen to tone down the dialogue to get a T rating, but it was important to creator Nifflas that its characters swore like sailors and openly discussed their sexuality).

Depends i suppose. Making a character gay in order to fill a checkbox or check list is the wrong approach. If you have a good reason for them being gay and it's an actual character, sure. But if you push too hard you're going to turn away or annoy people.

rtcvb32: 3) Don't pander to who isn't your audience

wyrdwad: I see this a lot, and would just like to say that despite everything else that's been said here, they very much ARE our audience, just as much as you are. And they're more numerous than you might think, as well! Never underestimate the diversity of gamers.

SJWs are NOT your audience. They just make a lot of noise. Besides you'll never satisfy them, and they don't buy your products. Even if a few do purchase you'll lose far more of your core main audience than you'd gain. This story is being repeated multiple times and it's obvious.

wyrdwad: That said, I still don't believe in content censorship at all, but I also see no problem with creators including proudly LGBT characters in their work if they want to. As long as that's what the creator actually wants to do, I say bring it on. Video games could certainly use more diverse representation.

Agreed. However the 'diversity' in the media, news, politics, and pushed by SJW and others, simply means 'non white'. It's insanity. Regardless having more options never hurts.

I'd say in short; Stay true to your vision and it will probably be fine.

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rtcvb32: Depends i suppose. Making a character gay in order to fill a checkbox or check list is the wrong approach. If you have a good reason for them being gay and it's an actual character, sure. But if you push too hard you're going to turn away or annoy people.

If the creator wants to fill that checkbox, though, then let 'em! A character's sexuality doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things any more than a real person's. It's no one's business but that character's. ;)

rtcvb32: SJWs are NOT your audience. They just make a lot of noise. Besides you'll never satisfy them, and they don't buy your products. Even if a few do purchase you'll lose far more of your core main audience than you'd gain. This story is being repeated multiple times and it's obvious.

The thing is, though, they are. A lot of so-called "SJWs" play our games. Just as many as the "anti-SJW" contingent. Like, that's data that can be backed up with metrics.

(It does vary from game to game, though, of course. But you'd be surprised at how many socially conscious people even play games like Senran Kagura or Akiba's Trip!)

And our audience is and always has been anyone who enjoys playing good games. Period.

Doesn't mean we have to bend over backwards to accommodate their viewpoints, of course. But it also doesn't mean we have to bend over backwards to accommodate yours. It goes both ways.

Because there's no pleasing everyone, though, I believe in respecting the integrity of the original work, regardless of what that might entail. If that means including horribly offensive content that might turn off the socially conscious segment of our audience, then so be it... but also, if that means including "SJW" content that might turn off people like you, then so be it. If it's there in the original work, it should be there in our localized version, period. That is and always has been my personal stance.

rtcvb32: I'd say in short; Stay true to your vision and it will probably be fine.

Yep. I wholeheartedly agree with this.

-Tom

Post edited February 13, 2018 by wyrdwad

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wyrdwad: I see this a lot, and would just like to say that despite everything else that's been said here, they very much ARE our audience, just as much as you are. And they're more numerous than you might think, as well! Never underestimate the diversity of gamers.

Those accusations are clearly mislead - you don't want to pander, because it would mean that things stay the same. And it looks like you want the opposite - to reshape your audience according to your views and make them feel and think the "right" way.

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wyrdwad: I see this a lot, and would just like to say that despite everything else that's been said here, they very much ARE our audience, just as much as you are. And they're more numerous than you might think, as well! Never underestimate the diversity of gamers.

Hrymr: Those accusations are clearly mislead - you don't want to pander, because it would mean that things stay the same. And it looks like you want the opposite - to reshape your audience according to your views and make them feel and think the "right" way.

Not sure if that was directed at me or rtcvb, but if it was directed at me, I think you've got the wrong idea! I don't want to reshape the audience, and I don't want to reshape the creators.

Basically, I just want to time-slip into another dimension where such things aren't even concerns. ;)

But until/unless that becomes a possibility... well, I just want to localize content without censoring any of it. And have doing so not be an issue with my employer, or with the fanbase, or with anyone else.

...Unrealistic, I know. But that's the dream!

-Tom

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Down the road is there a possibility you might publish older JRPG's like "Venus and Braves", "Wachenroder" and others that, while definitely acclaimed, were overlooked here during the PS/PS2 era? Additionally what about the RPG's that have already been ported to PC by default because of the Korean market at the time of the PS?

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rtcvb32: Depends i suppose. Making a character gay in order to fill a checkbox or check list is the wrong approach. If you have a good reason for them being gay and it's an actual character, sure. But if you push too hard you're going to turn away or annoy people.

wyrdwad: If the creator wants to fill that checkbox, though, then let 'em! A character's sexuality doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things any more than a real person's. It's no one's business but that character's. ;)

rtcvb32: SJWs are NOT your audience. They just make a lot of noise. Besides you'll never satisfy them, and they don't buy your products. Even if a few do purchase you'll lose far more of your core main audience than you'd gain. This story is being repeated multiple times and it's obvious.

wyrdwad: The thing is, though, they are. A lot of so-called "SJWs" play our games. Just as many as the "anti-SJW" contingent. Like, that's data that can be backed up with metrics.

(It does vary from game to game, though, of course. But you'd be surprised at how many socially conscious people even play games like Senran Kagura or Akiba's Trip!)

And our audience is and always has been anyone who enjoys playing good games. Period.

Doesn't mean we have to bend over backwards to accommodate their viewpoints, of course. But it also doesn't mean we have to bend over backwards to accommodate yours. It goes both ways.

Because there's no pleasing everyone, though, I believe in respecting the integrity of the original work, regardless of what that might entail. If that means including horribly offensive content that might turn off the socially conscious segment of our audience, then so be it... but also, if that means including "SJW" content that might turn off people like you, then so be it. If it's there in the original work, it should be there in our localized version, period. That is and always has been my personal stance.

rtcvb32: I'd say in short; Stay true to your vision and it will probably be fine.

wyrdwad: Yep. I wholeheartedly agree with this.

-Tom

I'm surprised this is still going on.

Honestly, though, I think it comes down to also that sometimes the localizers add their own agenda that wasn't in the original.

However, it also needs to be said that sometimes they don't add it, and it's perceived to be added by the localizers since the original is more subtle, and the subtlety can't be translated. Alot of people need to appreciate that sometimes there are things that are the localizer's job to interpret. Cavestory's censorship wasn't the only difference that the localizers had from the fan patches.

The only logical solution is to encourage localizers to include all original content as an option, that includes the language. Then people like me, who can speak the original language, can play the original games without trying to use places like play-asia.

Post edited February 14, 2018 by kohlrak

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Sarang: Down the road is there a possibility you might publish older JRPG's like "Venus and Braves", "Wachenroder" and others that, while definitely acclaimed, were overlooked here during the PS/PS2 era? Additionally what about the RPG's that have already been ported to PC by default because of the Korean market at the time of the PS?

We're open to any and all ideas, as long as the developers are open to letting us work on their properties! Feel free to email your suggestions to comments@xseedgames.com, or post them on the Suggestions board of our forums at http://www.xseedgames.com/forum/index.php.

Personally, I love the PS1 and PS2 eras of the JRPG, so I'd love to see this happen.

-Tom

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LootHunter

Downrepped by SJWs

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wyrdwad: I'm being an idealist -- wishing for a Star Trek future, basically, where all poverty and disease and prejudice are just completely gone, and there's no longer any need to represent them in fiction except as idle curiosities.

And if you have a problem with THAT, well, then we're just going to have to agree to disagree, because the Star Trek future is something I've always been hopeful for, and I always will be.

You can hope, but should remember that even in Star Trek kind of future there still will be controversial topics. Such TNG episodes as Drumhead and Offspring, DS9 "On the hands of the Prophets" (and most of DS9 episodes actually) make that pretty clear.

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LootHunter

Downrepped by SJWs

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wyrdwad: Er, what if "being gay" is what the creator wanted from that character?

Then creator is free to do so. But in that case creator shouldn't complain abot players who don't like the character for behaving "very gay". Because censoring unfavourable comments is still censorship. And using SJ rethoric about oppression from white straight males to shut down a part of audience is not an excuse. Especially for shoehorned and poor written characters for the sake of representation.

Still, I'm yet to see homosexuality cenosred in modern games. Unlike heterosexuality.

Post edited February 14, 2018 by LootHunter

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LootHunter: Still, I'm yet to see homosexuality cenosred in modern games. Unlike heterosexuality.

Modern games, I can't think of any examples offhand, though there's always the classic Sailor Moon example with Sailors Neptune and Uranus. And more recently there's Gravity Falls, where creator Alex Hirsch wanted to depict a homosexual couple as side characters in one episode, but Disney shut him down.

Trans issues have been censored in game media quite a bit, though -- Super Mario Bros. 2 and Paper Mario being prime examples that come to mind immediately, though I'm certain there are others I'm forgetting about.

Can't think of even one single example of heterosexuality being censored in modern media, however. If the creator's original intent was for a heterosexual character, I feel pretty confident in saying that no producer or publisher has ever demanded that character be depicted as homosexual instead in localized versions.

-Tom

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dtgreene

Nasty Woman she/her

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wyrdwad: Trans issues have been censored in game media quite a bit, though -- Super Mario Bros. 2 and Paper Mario being prime examples that come to mind immediately, though I'm certain there are others I'm forgetting about.

One little correction: It's not Paper Mario 64, but rather its sequel (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door), where the censorship occurred. (Vivian is male in the Japanese version, despite appearances; they were changed to female in the US release.)

Since you mentioned Super Mario Bros. 2, a game that went by a different title in Japan, what do you think of the renumbering of games to hide releases that didn't get localized? The Final Fantasy series is one example (the SNES games called FF2 and FF3 are really localized versions of the Japanese FF4 and FF6), though there's also the interesting case of Famicom Wizardries (2 and 3 have their numbers switched because they were released in reverse order; of course, Legacy of Llylgamyn FC didn't get translated, so the US NES version of Knight of Diamonds got released under its proper title).

To put it another way, if you were publishing Elminage 3 in the west, would you still call it that, or would you call it Elminage 2 (because the real Elminage 2 hasn't seen a US release; only Original (which is a remake of 1) and Gothic (which didn't have a number in its Japanese release)?

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wyrdwad

New User

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wyrdwad: Trans issues have been censored in game media quite a bit, though -- Super Mario Bros. 2 and Paper Mario being prime examples that come to mind immediately, though I'm certain there are others I'm forgetting about.

dtgreene: One little correction: It's not Paper Mario 64, but rather its sequel (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door), where the censorship occurred. (Vivian is male in the Japanese version, despite appearances; they were changed to female in the US release.)

Since you mentioned Super Mario Bros. 2, a game that went by a different title in Japan, what do you think of the renumbering of games to hide releases that didn't get localized? The Final Fantasy series is one example (the SNES games called FF2 and FF3 are really localized versions of the Japanese FF4 and FF6), though there's also the interesting case of Famicom Wizardries (2 and 3 have their numbers switched because they were released in reverse order; of course, Legacy of Llylgamyn FC didn't get translated, so the US NES version of Knight of Diamonds got released under its proper title).

To put it another way, if you were publishing Elminage 3 in the west, would you still call it that, or would you call it Elminage 2 (because the real Elminage 2 hasn't seen a US release; only Original (which is a remake of 1) and Gothic (which didn't have a number in its Japanese release)?

Neither; we'd probably call it "Elminage: (insert subtitle here)," as we did with Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed (which is just Akiba's Trip 2 in Japan) and Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection (which is Zwei II+ in Japan).

I have no issue with dropping the number from a release in order to avoid confusing casual players, but I do personally rather dislike it when a different number is used instead, since that just creates further confusion. I'm very much a fan of the "add a descriptive subtitle instead of a number" approach, which also seems to be the XSEED standard at this point. ;)

-Tom

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kohlrak

The Liar

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LootHunter: Still, I'm yet to see homosexuality cenosred in modern games. Unlike heterosexuality.

wyrdwad: Modern games, I can't think of any examples offhand, though there's always the classic Sailor Moon example with Sailors Neptune and Uranus. And more recently there's Gravity Falls, where creator Alex Hirsch wanted to depict a homosexual couple as side characters in one episode, but Disney shut him down.

Trans issues have been censored in game media quite a bit, though -- Super Mario Bros. 2 and Paper Mario being prime examples that come to mind immediately, though I'm certain there are others I'm forgetting about.

Can't think of even one single example of heterosexuality being censored in modern media, however. If the creator's original intent was for a heterosexual character, I feel pretty confident in saying that no producer or publisher has ever demanded that character be depicted as homosexual instead in localized versions.

-Tom

Confusion arises, since sexual content is usually heterosexual, while sexuality is a separate issue. Sexual content in general is censored (thus heterosexual content is being censored), while non-sexual displays of sexuality (kissing, handholding, etc) of homosexuals tends to get censored. This creates the illusion that only heterosexual content gets censored, since in games where they don't censor, it's often apologetically so, thus they keep non-hetero relations as well. However, where a game doesn't have overt sexuality, homosexual couples will get censored out.

There's alot to be said about Japanese language preferring gender neutral pronouns (thanks to the double meaning of the gender specific pronouns possibly implicating a relationship [彼女, for example, can mean "she/her" or it can also mean "girlfriend" which can easily become confusing, so そいつ, which is gender neutral, becomes preferred]), which leads to situations like with Poison from street fighter not really having a clear original gender. On one hand, they could've be subtly testing the trans idea, it's also possible that it really was a mistranslation in the manuals.

Then there's also the fact that, while names typically do have genders, Japanese is one of those languages where you can easily end up with A Boy Named Sue, especially when using western names whose genders they cannot imply to the same degree as us. We know a name like Vivian is feminine, but did it sound like a masculine name to the creators (Vivi from final fantasy IX is perceived masculine)? Was it homosexuality that was censored, or was the name important enough that changing the sexuality of the character worth it, due to an extra added meaning that the Japanese audience would not have perceived (in other words, did it over-hilight the hoosexuality to the point of potentially distracting from the story?)? I'm not familiar with the case being referenced, to be honest.

wyrdwad: Trans issues have been censored in game media quite a bit, though -- Super Mario Bros. 2 and Paper Mario being prime examples that come to mind immediately, though I'm certain there are others I'm forgetting about.

dtgreene: One little correction: It's not Paper Mario 64, but rather its sequel (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door), where the censorship occurred. (Vivian is male in the Japanese version, despite appearances; they were changed to female in the US release.)

Since you mentioned Super Mario Bros. 2, a game that went by a different title in Japan, what do you think of the renumbering of games to hide releases that didn't get localized? The Final Fantasy series is one example (the SNES games called FF2 and FF3 are really localized versions of the Japanese FF4 and FF6), though there's also the interesting case of Famicom Wizardries (2 and 3 have their numbers switched because they were released in reverse order; of course, Legacy of Llylgamyn FC didn't get translated, so the US NES version of Knight of Diamonds got released under its proper title).

To put it another way, if you were publishing Elminage 3 in the west, would you still call it that, or would you call it Elminage 2 (because the real Elminage 2 hasn't seen a US release; only Original (which is a remake of 1) and Gothic (which didn't have a number in its Japanese release)?

I'm addressing you, too, with the above.

EDIT: Looking up this particular case, the wiki information i read says transsexual, but the limited Japanese i'm seeing keeps it rather unclear. It could just be that they're joking that vivian is ugly or something like that, but ビビアン doesn't stand out to be either masculine or feminine in nature, and they aren't using another name to refer to vivian, implying the name was never changed. Given how the same line was translated to english, i'm assuming the translator didn't assume transexuality. Was that then out of censorship, misinterpretation (translators aren't perfect), or are we reading more into the source material than we should and projecting our interpretation where it wasn't meant to be, especially as we're not native japanese speakers?

Post edited February 14, 2018 by kohlrak

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LootHunter

Downrepped by SJWs

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wyrdwad: And more recently there's Gravity Falls, where creator Alex Hirsch wanted to depict a homosexual couple as side characters in one episode, but Disney shut him down.

1. It's a cartoon.

2. Later they allowed homosexual romance.

wyrdwad: Can't think of even one single example of heterosexuality being censored in modern media, however.

Sexually attractive women in sexually attractive poses and clothes are getting constant SJW backlash and censorship on the basis of men shouldn't be sexually aroused by women in games.

Many Japaneese games with too sexually attractive women (DoA series for example) simply not released in US.

wyrdwad: Trans issues have been censored in game media quite a bit, though -- Super Mario Bros. 2 and Paper Mario being prime examples that come to mind immediately, though I'm certain there are others I'm forgetting about.

In Siege of the Dragonspear there was (allegedly) trans character. She was very poorly written, however, so there was backlash about it (the writing not the character). However, her (character) creator accused everyone who didn't like her of transfobia.